One method I use to help keep visitors on my site is by creating my hyperlinks so they open a new window when they are clicked. Patty over at Low-Carb Patty asked how she might create a hyperlink that when clicked, would open a new window, instead of taking the user away from her site. This is easily done by adding a property to the anchor (a) tag.
If you are not familiar with the basic structure of a hyperlink, you might want to read my article on how to create a hyperlink before continuing. This link will also open in a new window, just to show what I’m talking about. Isn’t that clever?
No, not really.
Why Define Hyperlinks to Open a New Window?
“Why would one want to have their links open in a new window?”, you might ask. The primary reason a blogger would do this is to keep the user on their site. Just because you provide a link, it doesn’t mean you want the visitor to leave your site, does it? Maybe, maybe not. It really depends on what you are trying to achieve. For instance, when I create hyperlinks in my posts, I consider why I’m providing a link. Is it supplementary to the content? Is it simply a reference to deeper information than I intend on providing? In both of those cases, I might consider having the hyperlink open a new window, so you, the visitor, can get whatever information your linking to, yet still resume where you left off in my post.
The way I see it, if I’m linking to my own content, I won’t open a new window. However, if I am referring to another blog or web site, I’ll have a new window open to display the web page. It keeps the user on my blog, because honestly, I don’t want anyone to leave. I think you probably feel the same way.
Create a Hyperlink That Opens a New Window
The basic structure of a hyperlink looks like this:
<a href="http://www.waynejohn.com">Visit Wayne, He's a Hoot!a>
As you can see, we have all we really need to create a link and make it go somewhere. But how would we make it open a new window? Easy. We need to add one more property to the ‘A’ tag to make it do what we want. All we need to add is:
target="_blank"
That’s it! Just like the href property/value pair (href=”some value”), we simply include the target=”_blank” to the ‘A’ tag and we’re done. Here is what the finished product will look like:
<a href="http://www.waynejohn.com" target="_blank">Goofball Waynea>
Sometimes, editors (not people, the ones we use to write posts with) will provide this functionality as an option for you when you create a hyperlink. Blogger does not do this, you need to view the HTML source, find the ‘A’ tag you want to modify and then add the target=”_blank” value pair to the hyperlink definition.
Conclusion
I know there are many people out there that find it a bit frustrating when they create a link, only to lose visitors to the link destination, never to see them again. This is one small step you can take to help create a user experience on your site that you intend.
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Jon, you’re brilliant. Thanks for cluing me in to that. http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tag_base.asp
Ain’t ever used it, but it’s stored for future use now. Thanks a bunch!
If I’m not wrong, a nice way to make ALL your links open in a new window without having to add manually target=”_blank” is to add the following on the HEAD section of your page/blog:
[quote]
It seems to work for me. Hope it helps
Vanea, I’ve written a bit on HTML, but honestly, there are other sites that have way better material if you are looking to learn HTML. I simply write about things that are pertinent to Blogger users, and bloggers in general.
At least I try to..lol
This is a very useful post! Wayne, amigo! Bravo! It’s old and i see it just now, but, mister Wayne, you are teacher in this domain?! You should tell to us more about web and about html codes! Thank you Wayne! Bell
You should put some logic behind it. If all links open a new window, that would be quite annoying I think. My rule is, if the link takes you to another location within my realm, it stays in the new window. If the link takes the user away, then it opens a new window. Cheers Wheels!
I’m an idiot haha, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier.
Good idea though, I will change all my links to open in a new page.
Cheers
target=”_blank” will open a new window and is the accepted way to do it. Is that what you were questioning?
Hi Wayne. Thanks for the reminder that folks need to be educated about simple stuff too. Often I wrack my brain for complicated stuff to post about and forget about what is (to me) obvious. Personally I always like to open pages in new tabs too, and use the same technique on my blog – new tabs for external links, same tab for internal ones.
Thanks Jim!
Good tip, man. I always forget about that.
Thanks for your submission to the Twenty-Seventh edition of the Blog Carnival: Blogging. Your post has been accepted and its live:
http://thatsblog.com/?p=162
-ThatsBlog.com
There’s a time and place for both I think. It really depends on how you want to work your site.
I routinely have around 20-30 tabs open when things really get going, however I will right-click and open in new tab myself to be sure I make it back to the original page…if I want to.
I personally am a fan of same window. I really hate having 30+ windows open at the same time.
Well, here I describe a method that will open a new window for your users when they click a link. Putting links on other sites will help increase your impressions for sure, like you did here by commenting.
As for the MORE link, to be honest with you, I have yet to work that out for myself. I know some people have got this to work, but their implementations are suspect and a bit buggy because they are hacks (not the person, the techniques) hahaha
As for editing the blogger templates, that is what I’m currently writing on, so subscribe up and be patient while I work on my posts!
Cheers!
using hyperlinks in another way to increase our page imression right?
I really like to know, how to edt our blogspot, so that, the user will only see short informatio about some post.. So they need to click a hyperlink @ like “READ MORE”, so that they can read full post … teach me how to edit the blogspot templete…
Yup, that’s why they call it syntax. Sinfully taxing. You get used to it after a few go rounds though.
That’s really awesome Milly!
I just added the target=_blank” to some links on my latest post and after a few false starts, it works!. Lovely! But it is very easy to type in the wrong code…miss one little element and its a broken link. I should get organised and copy and paste from a text editor I suppose.
Hi Dana! Blank won’t do anything but tell the hyperlink that it better open a new window when it’s clicked. That’s all. The Href tells it where to go, target only tells it HOW to go (using the same window, or open new one).
OK. I was with you when I thought I was supposed to insert a link to another one of MY posts, but where will the “blank” take you????
Demeur, do you have a link as an example? I don’t see anything on your site that does this…perhaps I’m misunderstanding?
Sorry I got busy and forgot to get back here. The process of making a flip is to make a draft of page 2 then make a link to it on the front page. Seems to work for me anyway.
That’s just awesome Patty! Glad that worked out for ya!
Wayne, thank you so much for this post. I had tried to do the html hyperlink after you explained it in your email to me, but couldn’t get it right. When I read it in this post, it just “clicked”. I tried it in my blog, and wonders never cease — it worked! Thanks again, you’re great!
Demeur, you didn’t need to modify your template, or you didn’t need to use a different template?
Can you share what you did with us?
Wayne I accidentally figured out how to do the flips last night. By golly it works. Didn’t need any templates or anything either.
That’s awesome Alex! I always love it when I can put something out that actually helps rather than puts people to sleep. hahaha
techno-tard…lol
Hey, Wayne! As a techno-tard and part of your core audience, just thought I’d let you know that this post really helped me. Thanks!
Hmm…not sure off the top of my head. I’ll see what I can find, that would be a little time-saver for sure.
Hi Wayne, is there another way to do this without having to add this hyperlink in each URL? Can we add a line in the template (HTML) so all external links will open in a new window? Thanks.
I found a quiz widget that said I was a bondage harness. Maybe that will be a post for a Friday. hmm.
Sorry to disappoint ya Roger, I know a few blogs you might try though. lol
When I saw your title, I thought maybe you were thinking bondage or something. You’re talking about a DIFFERENT kind of link. Never mind.
Demeur, try this out:
http://www.eblogtemplates.com/how-to-add-the-blogger-read-more-expandable-posts-link/
See if that will do what you need. Let me know if you have any issues, and [b]BE SURE[/b] to make a backup of your template before starting anything! Don’t want you going and pulling a Gary.
Demeur – I agree. I like the ‘Read More’ presentation myself. It’s simple and helps keep things clean looking.
It’s beyond me, but it seems some of the visitors do not understand the concept and these were even bloggers. I was really surprised, lol. I could tell by some of the comments that they obviously did not open and read the rest of the post even when it seemed evident that one should do so by the nature of the post.
You may be right about having the comment option on the flip page but then some of them may not be able to figure that out, lol. My ‘Read More’ is within the post only so the comment option and other data is always visible.
Also, sometimes I have to remember that some of my visitors are not blog savvy. I have several friends and relatives (who are not familiar with blogs at all) that have visited but I have yet to have a single comment from any of them, lol. (I know they visited because I see them in the stats.) And I know that many have no idea how to maneuver around in the blog so I try to keep things relatively simple for them. I’ve had some tell me they couldn’t figure out how to make a comment. Hmmm – Maybe I need to upgrade my friends and relatives.
I like the ‘read more’ link because if a post is too long people will only read the first few paragraphs and move on. If you tie the flip page to the comments I think people will be inclined to read the whole thing. I have no idea how to do that. I had a hard enough time getting links to work when I first started. Still can’t post videos for some reason the code doesn’t work.
You are very welcome BakerWatson.
I have yet to post on how to add a ‘more’ link for the very reasons you have explained there. There are technical problems with any hack you might put in place, and sometimes one size does not fit all given the variety of templates and what-not.
I may have some ideas now that you mention it…
Thanks for explaining how to make a hyperlink open in a new window. I personally nearly always open items in a new tab/window when I am on a blog or site so I don’t have to continually back up to the original post I was reading, but I’m sure many of my visitors do not. I figure that sometimes it will be advantageous to adjust the link as you recommend.
I have the ‘read more’ option on a lot of my posts in Blogger and it generally works pretty good. Don’t remember where I got the modification but I’m sure it wasn’t too difficult to add to the template. I do have a couple of issues with it. First, I always have to wait until the last step to add it. If I add it early and shift something around then the lines of code tend to replicate all over the place and I have to go back and eliminate all the extra ones. Second, I find that many of the visitors obviously do not open the ‘Read More’, lol. And I’m talking about people who leave comments. I’ve even resorted to include a line in the post gently reminding them to open it and some still don’t when it would seem to me they would. Therefore, I don’t normally use it anymore on the current post, but will go back and add it to older posts.
Demeur, the ‘more’ link isn’t an option on Blogger, you will need to modify your template. I have yet to find a decent way to do this myself.
I’ll see what I can turn up, but I fear that what I put out will be a hack of sorts, and not as solid as I would want it to be.
I still wonder how you get the “more” link at the end of your home page post. That’s still confusing me or maybe I missed that lesson.